Why Do We Come to Tryon Farm?

I was on the beach last August chatting with a friend.  She remarked that she was leaving town shortly for Switzerland to join her husband, a professional  musician who was playing at a jazz festival.  There would be parties, music, special events, some international flair--the sort of thing you might see  pictures of in the Times' travel section.  "Wow.  Sounds great,"  was my response.  "Actually," she said, "I'd rather be right here."  "Here" for my friend was a little strip of bay beach, smaller than a decent suburban lawn, stuck at the end of the road in a little Long Island town you have never heard of.

For my family--my wife and three daughters, my parents, my brother and sisters and their children--the "here",  the special place, the place that pulls us to it is Tryon Farm in Michigan City, Indiana where my parents have a house at 31 Tryon Farm Lane.  Why do we come?  We come for the beauty of the farm, and to live in nature in a way that you cannot in the city or suburbs.  We come for the fields, the dunes, the woods, the wetlands,  and for Lake Michigan a bike ride away.  We come for a striking modern house filled with light, covered by a green roof. We come for a community of interesting neighbors who live at the farm. And, of course, we come for family, because my parents envisioned this farm becoming a community twenty years ago,  and nothing ties you to a place like building it.

David  (1/16/12, Noonans at the farm: Sarah, Gabe and Sophie)